


On the Menu

by vanillafluffy



Series: JB in the Tower [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Wanda Maximoff Friendship, Bucky Barnes Cooks, Gen, Maria Hill Feels, Maria Hill-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: For the prompt "Real cooking is by following your heart not a recipe". Bucky gets acquainted with another Tower resident. Maria strongly disapproves. Lunch ensues.
Series: JB in the Tower [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577407
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	On the Menu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



Maria Hill has never been a trusting soul, and the arrival of the Winter Soldier in Stark Tower has jacked her paranoia up to twelve. So when JARVIS announces, **Ms. Hill, you asked to be alerted to any unusual activity on the part of Sergeant Barnes. He has just met his nearest neighbor** , she drops her pen and asks, “Who?”

**Ms. Maximoff. She knocked on his door and was admitted. Apparently, he has been cooking something that she finds appetizing.**

He probably isn’t going to poison her--that’s not his style--but Wanda is young and naive. If he decided to terminate her, she’d never see it coming. Maria’s been sparring with him--she knows how ungodly fast he is. Maria bolts from her office, sprinting to the elevator and demanding a direct turbo lift to the 47th floor.

When she barges into the apartment--her clearance gives her an automatic security override--she finds Wanda perched on a tall stool at the dining table while Barnes leans against the kitchen counter, both of them laughing at some joke. They’re consuming bowls full of,,,whatever it is. The aroma lingering in the apartment is strong, but not unpleasant.

“Good afternoon, Hill,” Barnes greets her as if her sudden arrival is perfectly ordinary. He sets his bowl on the counter. Takes out a third bowl, fills it and offers it to her. “Have some colcannon.”

Cabbage, potatoes, chunks of meat…she eyes the mess dubiously.

“It’s really good,” Wanda says, around a mouthful. “Just like my mother’s zlotazh.”

The fact that he’s eating it doesn’t mean a thing--she’s watched Steve Rogers take the TidePod challenge and go through half a bag like it was popcorn. You could probably put arsenic instead of powdered sugar on his donut and he’d only get a little gas. Super soldiers…well, they’re super, duh.

Barnes resumes his own meal, leaving it up to her to eat or not. “This is the good stuff,” he comments. “Brisket--when I was growing up, it was usually salt pork, or maybe a couple knuckle-bones.”

“Mama made her zlotazh with lamb,” Wanda says with a reminiscent sigh. 

“Lamb sounds good. Next time, I’ll see if I can get some parsnips. They add a note of sweetness.”

Maria assays a trial spoonful of the mess. It doesn’t look like much, but she admits it’s damn tasty.

“Did your mother teach you to cook?” Wanda asks, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

“I was the oldest kid,” he shrugs. “I grew up helping her in the kitchen. There were four of us kids and our folks, so we ate a lot of colcannon. It was cheap and filling. Even when we had to dig sprouts out of the potatoes and the carrots were practically wood, it still hit the spot. Ma used to say, ‘The only ingredient you can’t skimp on is love’.”

Wanda says something in Sokovian. Maria doesn’t understand a word of it. Barnes shakes his head. “Something about following a recipe?” he ventures. 

“’A true cook follows their heart, not a recipe’,” she translates. “That’s what my mama used to say. We were young when our parents died,” Wanda is wistful. “I wish I could have learned all her recipes. She was a wonderful cook.”

“What about you, Hill?” Barnes asks. “Was your mom a good cook?”

The easy camaraderie the two have infuriates her. She doesn’t like him to begin with, and the fact that he’s insinuated himself with the youngest Avenger is intolerable. She wants to lash out, to negate their jollity. “My mother died of a pulmonary embolism when I was three days old,” she snarls. “I have no idea what kind of cook she was.” If that doesn't torpedo the party, nothing will!

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” she adds as twin expressions of concern appear on their faces. “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”

They exchange glances, then Wanda gets up and puts her empty bowl in the sink. “Thank you very much for lunch, JB. I really enjoyed it.”

“No problem, kiddo. Don’t be a stranger.”

Wanda departs, and Maria sighs with relief. She doesn’t usually talk about the circumstances of her childhood, but it’s done the trick here. The immediate threat is over--she’s convinced that letting Barnes become too much of an influence in Wanda’s life would be bad. Who knows what kind of Hydra programming may still be in effect when it comes to Barnes? Wanda is young and prone to be impulsive--the last thing they need is for her to be corrupted by the Winter Soldier.

“It’s not true, you know,” Barnes says, rinsing his and Wanda’s bowls out in the sink. “You absolutely can miss things you’ve never had. Hydra kept me on a tight leash. I wore what they gave me, ate what they gave me and did what they told me to do. I knew there was more to life--I could see what other people had--but they wouldn’t let me have it, so I told myself I didn’t want it. That didn’t make it true. I wanted it--freedom, happiness, a life--I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t worthy of that.”

She wants to say it isn’t the same thing at all, but isn’t it? Growing up, going through one stepmother after another, to say nothing of the parade of girlfriends her dad had had…rarely connecting with any of them, always on the outside looking in when it came to her schoolmates talking about their families…and the persistent feeling that it was her fault somehow.

“Are you going to finish that?” Barnes asks. She surrenders the bowl, lost in the past, caught between being irked by his insight and surprised that they have anything remotely in common. 

To her mild surprise, he sticks the leftover colcannon into the microwave and nukes it for a moment, then finishes it. “I don’t want it to go to waste,” he says, spooning it up.

“That’s where it’ll go,” she retorts, patting her own flat stomach.

“Ah, I’ll work it off. You want some to take home for dinner?” he offers.

“No. Thank you,” she utters through clenched teeth.

“Okay.” He takes the third bowl over to the sink and runs water into it. “Look, any time you want to stop by, Hill, feel free. I promise, there’ll always be something here for you, even if it’s just a sandwich.”

He thinks she’s here to mooch a meal? What a laugh. “Oh, I will be stopping by,” she cautions him. “I’ve got my eye on you. Both of you.”

Barnes places the clean bowl to drain with the others in the rack beside the sink. “Not to worry. She’s a nice kid, but she’s way too young for me.” He smiles broadly.

Wait, he thinks she’s jealous? The ego on that guy! She doesn’t find him attractive in the slightest! The same way she doesn’t trust him around any of the people she cares about. He is, after all, the same man who (at least temporarily) killed Nick Fury. 

“Remember that,” she advises. “I have to get back to work. Thanks for lunch.”

…*


End file.
